Duisburg

26 March 1943 — Duisburg

Date
26 March 1943
Target
Duisburg, Germany
Force dispatched
455 aircraft
Aircraft lost
6

Narrative

Duisburg, with its vast inland docks at the meeting of the Rhine and the Ruhr, was a natural target for the new offensive, but this first attempt of the campaign was largely defeated by the weather. Of the 455 aircraft dispatched — Wellingtons, Lancasters and Halifaxes the bulk of them — the Oboe Mosquitoes that should have marked the city were thwarted when five of them returned early with equipment failures, and thick cloud scattered the raid widely across the valley. Only token damage was done: about fifteen houses destroyed and eleven people killed. Yet the night was costly in another way, for among the six bombers lost — a low 1.3 per cent overall — was the first Oboe-equipped Mosquito to fall, a reminder that the secret aid the campaign depended on could itself be brought down over enemy soil. Duisburg would have to be revisited; on this night the cloud had saved it.

Sortie details (which aircraft from which squadron, which crew flew, the outcome) will populate this page once the TNA AIR 27 squadron-diary importer arrives.

The fallen

166 airmen in this archive died on 26 March 1943 or the day that followed. For a raid of this kind these are overwhelmingly the night's losses, though a death-date match is not by itself proof an individual flew this operation.

See all 166 who died on 26 March →

Source: Wikipedia — Battle of the Ruhr →